The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

Nothing should surprise us when Putin has warned against ‘excessively demonizing’ a dictator responsible for the death of millions, and that same dictator is named ‘the most outstanding figure of all ages by a terrifying 38% of Russians polled. Yet the news that the Moscow Law Academy has erected a monument to this mass murderer is still profoundly shocking. . | detail

Denis Bakholdin, a Moscow activist and opponent of Russia’s war against Ukraine has been found in a Russian SIZO, or remand prison, three months after he disappeared in Kyiv. Little is known about how he came to be there, with this and the apparent use of torture chillingly reminiscent of stories of how Ukrainians have come to be in Russian detention . | detail

A court in Russia has found Roman Grishin guilty of ‘inciting enmity’ by reposting a musical video clip critical of Russia’s military engagement in eastern Ukraine. This was not the first time that repressive measures have been used for merely reposting the video’s hard-hitting attack on the excuses Russia uses for its aggression, but it is the first criminal prosecution. | detail

Russia’s Investigative Committee and courts have developed their own, specific, definition of mercenary, and it is only very loosely connected with money. Artem Shirobokov is the first Russian to have been convicted of ‘taking part in an armed conflict as a mercenary’ and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. | detail

Alexei Moroshkin has been released after being held against his will in a psychiatric clinic since November 2015, almost certainly for his civic opposition activities and for his criticism of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine | detail

Andriy Kolomiyets, one of the two Ukrainians whom Russia has imprisoned on fabricated charges linked with Euromaidan, has reported worrying symptoms and asked for medical tests. There are grounds for concern as the other Ukrainian Oleksandr Kostenko has been persistently denied treatment for a serious injury inflicted by the FSB after his arrest. | detail

Photos from the violent suppression of peaceful protests in Russia on June 12 have exposed a man now in Russian OMON riot police gear, but wanted by Ukraine for his leading role in the bloody dispersal of Maidan activists on November 30, 2013. Serhiy Kusyuk is the second key suspect who appears to now be helping the regime under Russian President Vladimir Putin to crush protest. | detail

The closed trial has begun in Russia of Yury Dmitriev, a 61-year-old historian and head of the Karelia Memorial Society who has devoted his life to ensuring that the truth is known about the Soviet Terror and that the mass graves of its victims are found | detail

Murad Amriyev, a 32-year-old MMA fighter from the southern Russian region ruled by Kremlin-backed strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, was facing deportation from Belarus on June 8, a transfer that rights activists say would place his life and well-being at risk. | detail

Natalya Sharina, a 59-year-old librarian has received a 4-year suspended sentence with a 4-year probation period, for supposed ‘extremism’ linked with material in the Ukrainian Literature Library, and on a far-fetched charge of squandering public money. | detail

You can hardly call the proposed 5-year suspended sentence and massive fine on librarian Natalya Sharina for supposed ‘incitement’ over the content of material in her library good news, but it could have been much worse.. | detail

Substantial youth participation in nationwide anticorruption protests organized by opposition leader Aleksei Navalny in March jolted Russia’s political landscape, leaving officials wringing their hands over how to effectively court a demographic that, a new study suggests, is deeply distrustful of the ruling class | detail

Pro-Kremlin outlets share an often-repeated narrative about migrants in the EU Member States. It combines elements of misinformation with a factual background of refugees arriving in Europe in large numbers | detail

18 months after Vitaly Pop, who was just 16, died of appalling injuries on his first night in a Russian ‘corrective’ colony, two prison officers have received 11-year sentences, with eight others sentenced to terms from two and a half to five years | detail

Artur Panov, who is from the Luhansk oblast, has been in Russian custody since his arrest on 5 December 2015, two months before his seventeenth birthday. Although Panov himself, now 19, has admitted to some of the charges against him, there remain major reasons for concern, not least because of his age and certain doubts about his mental health. | detail

It is exactly three years since Oleg Sentsov, Ukrainian filmmaker and single father, was arrested in Simferopol, shortly after Russia invaded and annexed Crimea. His trial and 20-year-sentence have been condemned by the entire international community, yet Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps repeating the same narrative, that Sentsov was tried and convicted of ‘terrorism’ | detail

It is three years since Oleg Sentsov’s two children saw their father, and could be another 17 years if Russian President Vladimir Putin has his way. There are levers to put pressure on Putin and on those Russians who collaborate in torturing and imprisoning innocent Ukrainians and your help is vital! | detail